When did you realize that art is your path?

In the spirit of Joseph Beuys, I do believe that everyone is an artist. But I also believe that some people are given more support and encouragement to pursue that path than others. I have always enjoyed making and writing in different ways but now, more than ever, I would like to claim it more centrally as a way of life.

How do you balance your various projects since you are both an artist/researcher and a teacher?

And a mother of young children! Life is a juggling act! But you carve out time and find small spaces in between. I switch, almost on a daily basis, from feeling inspired and dispirited, energised and exhausted, militant and then invisible.

Installation, performance, writing… You choose different media to express yourself. Is there one that you prefer?

I have always felt like a jack of all trades and master of none. I have a love-hate relationship with installation, performance and writing (although mainly love) but am getting bolder about using them altogether.

Could you tell us about the process of creations? How long does it take to move from an idea to a piece of art?

As a mother, educator, researcher and artist, I find fragments of ideas in the unlikeliest of places and the strangest of times: washing my daughter’s hair, folding laundry, having a shower, but also talking to the people around me: students, colleagues, strangers and friends. It is a matter of storing these fragments somehow, and acting on them when I have the time, in whichever media feels right or is easiest in that moment. I am a fan of jotting down notes, but never remember to do this in the same place! Sometimes interesting assemblages emerge from this way of working, but often ideas will get lost and disappear. If they are good, though, I believe they will turn up again later in some form.

What are you trying to communicate with your art?

I suppose what it means to be human, and all the strangeness that implies. So that it might be recognised by another human, if I am lucky.

To what extent does the pandemic influence your depiction of art? Does it generate new inspiration? 

At the beginning of the pandemic, I shut down, as I think many people did, and in many ways I welcomed that shutting-down. Life slowed and priorities were thrown into relief. After a year of social distancing and various degrees of lockdown, I feel like a am finding my voice again and want to use it. But life feels more raw at the moment, and my senses more heightened, so I hope I can capture that in the work I have been experimenting with.

How do you feel about being involved in an online residency program? How important is to stay connected with the international art community?

I have loved being involved in this online residency and making interesting contacts with women all over the world from my own home! Just working out all our different time-zones and how we speak across them has been inspiring to me. There is a real spirit of generosity between us, which I greatly value, and I’m not sure I expected. Also, with young children, I wouldn’t usually be able to participate in a month-long residency away from home, so this has been a gift for me in many ways.

What are your thoughts about the theme ‘artist on standby’? Tell us a bit more about your project…

I like the juxtaposition between the idea of being on standby (at the ready, full of expectation) and our need to stand-by at the moment (unable to touch each other, watch from afar). I like that tension between the enforced stasis and the sense of longing it evokes.

I have been playing with images (still and moving) and words that try to capture those ideas. I have become fascinated by the idea of the door to the Belgrade Art Studio which I cannot open physically, although I can look at pictures of it. I haven’t been to Belgrade (and can’t wait to go) but I imagine being there and I wonder what happens to that imagining. What happens when we imagine being somewhere, or touching something? Are we doing it, somehow, in another dimension?

So I have been thinking a lot about touch and place. About maps, of cities and of nervous systems. About bridging gaps and imagining bridging gaps. I think my final piece will be involve a piece of writing alongside a montage of images, but I am still working out how that will come together!

What do you want to achieve before things return to normal?

Ha! What is normal? I hope I can keep this sense of shifting priorities forever.

Any future plans/projects?

I hope to keep making and continue the conversations I have begun online during this residency. I feel they might lead somewhere else.